


Re-entry

by wynnesome



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnesome/pseuds/wynnesome
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS!Actual summary is very ambiguous, but I'm putting it in the A/N just to be safe.





	Re-entry

**Author's Note:**

> **SUMMARY**  
>  Tony Stark has been falling and getting back up again for a long, long time.  
> This time, he's finally back on his feet to stay.
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTES**  
>  Unbetaed ficlet.
> 
> After not writing fic for two months -- first, a self-imposed embargo to attend to other life/work matters, followed up by my writing-brain going completely offline -- this came bleeding out of me today.
> 
> As of writing and posting this, I have not seen Endgame, and will be doing so tomorrow. The day the movie came out, I did, however, choose to arm myself with a certain degree of foreknowledge of certain matters -- though definitely not full knowledge of the movie's plot and ending. As the saying goes, just enough to be dangerous. To be deadly.
> 
> I also happen to be of some particular and very detemined persuasions in terms of how I feel about the outcome of the Infinity War plotline, and more than that, the longer MCU arc reaching all the way back to Iron Man 1. I do know enough to be certain that this movie does not encompass those.
> 
> While I will probably never write it as a full-fledged fic, I do have in my mind the idea of a much more expansive resolution for this plotline as a whole. But this short piece (which does hint at that larger whole), is serving as a targeted reconciliation between the movie's outcome, and what my heart and mind know and dearly hold to be true for this story. 
> 
> Come tomorrow, this ficlet may seem to me to be foolish; preposterous, and premature. But in these last hours of limbo before seeing that which I know and the rest which I don't, it is bringing me a measure of peace.

He has known pain. Fear. Loneliness.  
  
More than that.  
  
He has known anguish. Terror. Desolation. Even death.  
  
All shadows of this void so vast that blackness pales.  
  
He has known nothing like this before.  
  
This swallowing pit, this obliterating emptiness that tears open his soul, that splits and strips him away speck by speck, displacing every mote to points separated across such a gulf, each to the next, that self and mind will fail to persist. Are failing.  
  
He is... fading, still-being, while ceasing to be.  
  
No, he has. He has been here, unbeen here, unbecome here, before. And before that. And again.  
  
Always for a reason, always for a cause worth leaving the cost uncounted, unconsidered.  
  
Mote by mote of his unmaking, he pays, and pays, and pays, and will always pay it. He, his agony, his undoing, are by far the lesser of importance.  
  
Every instant, he loosens, he lessens, he...  
  
Light. A translucent figure before him in soap-sheen, oil-slick shimmer, a glowing afterimage painted on the nothingness in softly vivid shades.  
  
It arrests his untethering, this presence of something other of substance, however tenuous, to give focus. To cling to. To hold his diminishing essence in cohesion.  
  
Soundlessly, it speaks.  
  
_"We are not so different, you and I."_  
  
He knows this being.  
  
_"We have both bargained our lives to protect our world whenever necessary, time and time again."_  
  
And he knows this truth it tells. Reminds him, every time, it reminds him, yet surely knowing it is futile. He will forget. The spaces between iota of his soul will soon span too far-flung for thought, for memory. He cleaves to it, what he can, while he can. It brings comfort, however uselessly fleeting, that flows through the growing chasms between him.  
  
_"Time--"_ the voice-not-voice breaks off. The figure's -- man's -- mouth hasn't been moving, but the corners of his eyes and lips crinkle, now, and he bubbles out a little laugh. There is irony in it, but no bitterness.  
  
_"I can tell you this,"_ he continues, fingering the gold and green amulet at his chest, brighter and more opaque than anything else about his form.  
  
_"It will seem like an eternity. An eternity of pain and sorrow, unending. But Tony--"_  
  
(what is, oh, he. He is, he was, _Tony_ )  
  
_"--I promise you--"_  
  
The strange outline glows brighter, conveying itself with such unbearable gentleness, a fathomless, ancient well of wisdom and compassion.  
  
_"--the loop will_ end _. It will break, the cycle will complete, and you, who have fallen so very far, so very many times -- you will emerge. You will stand, and remain standing."_  
  
It blazes, and he believes. It extinguishes, and he has nothing left to hold back the dismantling.  
  
Every instant, he is loosened, lessened, lost...  
  
He ends. And ends, and ends, an end unending.  
  
And then he begins. He becomes. He resumes. He coalesces from his boundless dissolution, and he knows himself.  
  
The circle is closed, and Tony Stark steps back into his world, to stay.


End file.
